August 6, 2009

A Casualty of the Twitter Denial-of-Service Attack Speaks

Update, August 8, 2:17 p.m. Eastern Time: Still can’t post on Twitter with Firefox 3.0 and must use Safari.

Update, August 8, 12:20 a.m.: After successfully posting a test tweet, I couldn’t post a real tweet when I went back to the site. The Twitter “Status” page said: “Some users are unable to update on the web using Firefox 3.5.” I was unable to tweet with Firefox 3.0. I switched to Safari and was able to post a tweet for the first time in 35 hours.

Update, August 7, 10:11 p.m.: I was finally able to post a test tweet on Twitter, about 33 hours after first noticing the problem.

Update, August 7, 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time: I’m still unable to post tweets on Twitter, and the service has finally admitted that many people are unable to do the same. Twitter posted this message about 10 minutes ago: “Due to defensive measures we’ve taken against the ongoing denial-of-service attack, someTwitter clients are unable to communicate with our API, and many users are unable to tweet via SMS.” Jan

For about nine hours I’ve been able to to sign on to Twitter but not to post, apparently because of the denial-of-service attack launched against the site. The Twitter people haven’t posted a status update on the attack since 4:14 p.m. and don’t give a time zone for that hour. They say coyly on their “Status” page that some people “may” be unable to post, although some people clearly are unable to post. You can read what appears on the Twitter “Status” page below. I’ll post again on Twitter as soon as I can after service is restored. Thanks so much for your patience in the meantime. Jan